Watch Her Run
by carmen-delrey
Summary: Jared Followill (Kings of Leon) / OC Kate Brooks
1. Chapter 1

**This is the first time I've posted on this site, though I've been writing FanFiction for years. I wrote this story about a year ago starring Jared Followill from the band Kings of Leon and my original character named Kate Brooks.**

**I hope someone out there reads and enjoys. xx**

* * *

_Kate Brooks.  
Twenty-one.  
Lead singer and guitarist for the band __**The Reminders**__, formed in 2007 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  
drums – Lance Sade  
backing vocals/bass – Colby Jacobs_

* * *

**_Don't deny yourself of the things you want. What you want will become strongly desired._**

I will never know exactly how or when my infatuation with Jared started. My feelings kind of charged at me out of nowhere. I told myself I was resistant; at first, I stayed as far away from him as I could. I had a boyfriend, so I couldn't possibly have feelings for someone else. I no more praised myself for what I got into than I did complain, which is what eventually killed me the most.

My lack of guilt didn't make me feel bad, it made me feel _powerful_. But who was I to be this new, dominant woman, keeping secrets from my friends, family… everyone? I was ashamed of what I would be called if they knew: the whore, the tramp, the un-grateful bitch.

_But then again, maybe that was me._

* * *

**Spring 2011.**

_"Just because you're saying sorry to me doesn't make any of this any fucking better."_

_This was the first time I realized that what I was doing was putting Jared through any kind of emotional distress. It never really dawned on me that he cared for me as much as he did. As far as I knew, until then, all he was in for was the sex. The really good, secretive, passion-fueled sex._

_"I am sorry, though, Jared. There's nothing else I can say."_

_I was sitting on his kitchen counter, feeling defeated, out of place. He turned his back to me. I immediately began wondering when he was going to ask me to leave his house._

_But he never did. Instead, he turned back around, expressionless, taking a slow, steady sip from the beer in his hand._

_I sat there frozen; the goose bumps were rising up my legs and arms as I anxiously waited for him to speak again._

_Slowly, Jared walked across the kitchen back towards me, where he had been before I blurted my un-meaningful "I'm sorry for sleeping with you even though I have a boyfriend" speech. He ran his hands up my legs until he reached my hips. I had become too accustomed to the feeling of his fingertips on my skin._

_"C'mere, little girl," he said. "You're stubborn as hell, you know that?"_

_Then, he lifted me up from the counter, kissing me, fueling my addiction to this feeling of being bad._

_We went to his room. It had become our familiar place._

* * *

**_"I need you so much closer." - Death Cab for Cutie, "Translantacism"_**

In the weeks after Jared and I had begun sleeping together, we fought. I hated his conceitedness, how he was so fucking hot and knew I couldn't resist him. He hated how beautiful I was and how he couldn't stay away from me. It was a double dose of negative energy. I only tasted guilt for what was going on when we were around our friends. Hell, the only reason Jared and I had grown so close in the first place was through them: Colby and Johanna had always been close, and after our bands did a short promotional tour together, Jared and I's little love affair didn't die.

I remember the first night we kissed. February. We were at a night club in Los Angeles, and Jared and I were sitting near each other. I was already finding myself making excuses as to why my boyfriend Tyler wasn't there.

"He's got a life; he's always working, so it's whatever. I'm having fun."

I distinctly remember Jared's smug smile after that, as if the gears were already turning in his head.

For the remainder of the night, I noticed him rivaling every other guy for my attention, as if I had never mentioned that I was in a relationship. His uncommitted attitude was both annoying and alluring, which sent me into an immediate frenzy of confusion. I told myself I was only drunk, that Jared was simply being flirty because he could be - nothing would happen. I was still slightly worried, though.

By the time our large party ended up at Caleb's California rent house later that night, I tried to be a little more stand-offish. He was taking shots inside with the boys as the few girls sat lazily on the back porch. I tried to become more involved in Johanna and Colby's excitement about our two week tour a few weeks before Coachella, but I was pretty drunk, and half of me almost wanted to call it a night before something bad happened. I could taste it –_something_ about this night was a little off.

I must have been in some sort of daze, because the sound of the glass door slamming shut made me jump. But I didn't even turn my head; I knew it was just Johanna and Colby going inside. I breathed in a huge gust of air. California was chilly.

"It feels so good out here."

Jared was sitting himself beside me on the edge of the porch. I pretended like I'd known he was there the whole time.

He nudged me with his elbow. "What's up?"

"Nothing." I shrugged. "I'm kind of cold." I didn't look at him.

"You're wearing a ripped sweater." I felt his palm on my bare shoulder. "Maybe that has something to do with it." His hand slowly moved slowly from my shoulder towards the top of my back, almost massaging me.

I couldn't help but smile. "I'm ticklish," I said shyly, shocked at my change in demeanor from how I was at the club to now. I cocked my head at him, and he giggled when I began to swat him away.

"Hey, hey, I'll stop." He took a sip of his beer, his gaze never leaving me, even as I stared straight ahead at the backyard. There was a silence, and then he cleared his throat.

I looked at him.

"You're cute," he said.

His charm killed me. I would eventually learn this to be his weapon.

I questioned my decisions, if they were acts of my subconscious or if I was guided by some everlasting force. I wondered if our fate was pre-destined. Why I was pondering this now, I didn't know. _Maybe it was a sign._

Jared snapped his fingers in front of my line of sight and whistled me out of my sudden daze. "You there?"

I looked back at him again and apologized, again shocked by the hesitancy in my voice. Still, though, I hoped he didn't think I was rude. "I'm sorry," I said again. "I'm just… out of it."

He smiled, breaking the tension. "Me too, don't worry."

The moon was so bright behind him. I couldn't tell if it was the alcohol or if Jared was somehow sitting closer than he had before. His face was inches in front of mine, and we both seemed to be reveling in the silence, confused what the other was thinking. I knew Jared couldn't be that smooth. He didn't know if I would kiss him. He thought I was going to flake out and run.

He sighed, running his hand through his hair. I could feel that sense of him giving up in the long breath he took.

I stared at him, and for once I could tell he felt awkward as he looked away from me. Still, though, I kept staring.

It felt like several long, drawn out seconds before he looked back at me. Again, we were just looking at each other. Silent. I smiled, amused. But fuck, what was I doing? Flirting with the devil, it seemed.

And finally, as if in slow motion, Jared wrapped his arm around my shoulders, taking a chance. His beer was still in hand, lazily dangling from his fingertips and resting against my arm. A quick sense of fear struck me, as if screaming in my ear, _Oh God, no turning back now._

There we were, basically cuddling on the back porch where anyone could walk out and find us. But I realized Jared didn't care, because after seemingly giggling at my tentativeness, he leaned in and kissed me. A slow, soft, perfect kind of first kiss that any girl would have melted over. I got lost in the taste of whiskey and beer on his tongue, gripping at the front of his sweatshirt as if we knew each other much better than we really did and this was a normal occurrence. I was spinning, mixed with both frustration and amusement, when I smiled, his lips still pressed on mine.

"I have a boyfriend," I whispered robotically. Truth was, at that moment, I didn't give a shit.

Jared leaned back just slightly to look at me, raising an eyebrow as if this were news to him. But he was selfish. He didn't care about anyone's well being but his own, I would learn later. Because even after faking concern, he just pulled me back in, his hand on my waist, drowning me once again in the taste of his lips.

We told no one about it. I went home to Tyler in New Orleans as if nothing had happened, no sense of guilt swarming me. After Jared did his best to flirt with me through text messages for an entire month afterward, the start of the four week promo tour with Kings of Leon was nearing to days. Two days before, we were all reunited in Los Angeles again. Jared was alone and as single as he had been when he kissed me. I remember walking in the room and seeing him across the way, thinking not of my boyfriend, but damn, of how fucking hot _he_ was.

He saw me and gave a coy smile, as if he hadn't been sending questionable text messages for a month straight to a girl with a boyfriend. _No, he was oh so innocent._

He walked over, giving everyone a hug and reaching me last. I laughed nervously as he leaned in, wrapping his arms around me casually, swaying me back and forth as if we were old buddies.

"Kate," he cooed.

I was about to speak when I felt his lips close to my ear. _Oh shit, shit, shit._

"It's really good to see you," he whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

**_CHAPTER TWO_**

**_I know you've heard the speech a million times before, "you can do better, and you deserve so much more". I get myself sick over it because I know that it's true, but I don't want better, I only want you._**

* * *

It was three days into our short tour – still in Los Angeles. I was dressed head to toe in white lace, my lips painted a flirty shade of pink. I couldn't have felt more beautiful. So why I was sitting outside of the venue on the concrete steps, texting my boyfriend and feeling sorry for myself, I didn't know.

The small one-way street was bare except for a few tourists wandering the streets, looking lost. I stared down at my blackberry. My service was shit here, and waiting for texts from Tyler just wasn't like me. But then again, I had every reason to act upon the fact that I missed him. I had made out with Jared the first night we landed in California. I woke up the next morning feeling like a failure and had been avoiding him ever since.

As I sat there my mind wandered to the way I had watched Jared flirt with a Megan Fox lookalike the night before, and how I was more annoyed than anything by what I saw. _Stupid jerk. He'd do anything to get in a girl's pants._

"Forgot something."

Once again, Jared crept up behind me, but this time I didn't jump like I had that first night. I didn't even flinch. I'd gotten used to it.

He sat down, and I looked at him in all of his disheveled glory, dressed head to toe in black with his ray-bans hanging from the collar of his shirt. His eyes were red, and I guess he caught me staring because he said, "I'm not drunk for once. I just woke up." Then, he handed me my black leather clutch.

"Thanks," I said flatly. I was doing my best not to think he looked cute, but it was hard.

Stylish and just quiet enough, exactly what girls' dreams were made of – that was Jared Followill. He sat there, making small talk with me as if we'd never encountered one another before. I wasn't sure whether to be confused, irritated, or… fascinated.

He suggested we take a walk - a little fresh air wouldn't hurt, right? _Even if his tongue had been down my throat two nights before._

Hours passed and I could almost feel my inhibitions melting away. Not only did my hostility vanish in Jared's presence, but he made our adventure around downtown almost feel like a date. At first I figured he was playing gentleman to make up for the awkwardness between us, to say sorry for violating me. _Yeah, that's right, I was the victim. Or at least I would play that way. _But when we entered a bar to sit down for lunch, and he insisted to not only pay for my drinks but also my meal, I could feel myself becoming more and more attracted to him. Again.

"I'm a southern boy, I treat the ladies well," he joked as we nearly stumbled out of the restaurant an hour later, tipsy from the beer and wine we had downed. He grabbed my hand, and I didn't pull away. I just let him stroll down the street with me, as if we were one of those newlywed couples in a strange setting on their honeymoon, so in love it hurt. That was the problem with me. I knew the difference between right and wrong, and could easily give the best advice. But with Jared, I found that advice very hard to follow, and I wasn't sure why yet.

I let myself walk hand-in-hand with this self-proclaimed southern gentleman in an unfamiliar city in my white gown, with my pink lips seemingly painted just to be kissed the way they do in the movies. I smiled as Jared lifted the back of my hand to his lips and kissed it flirtatiously. We kept walking until we reached the steps of the venue, back where we began.

Foggy as to how it happened, Jared was kissing me again, telling me I was beautiful, and leading me inside to where the others were with our secret sewn safely behind our lips.

After the set, still slightly tipsy from lunch and pre-show shots, I stared on at Jared, caught in a daydream of he and I. I was testing my boundaries by letting myself spend any real time with him. I was deranged, I decided. No one would take a chance like this — to decide to pursue a womanizing rocker when they had a devoted boyfriend waiting at home. No, a sane person would never.

I shook myself out of my trance for a second, examining the man in front of me. I felt my chest inflate at the thought of the possibility of a romance between us. It was the first time I'd felt that in so long, which is what drove me to decide, right then, as Jared made eye contact with me from onstage, that I didn't care about right and wrong. He held my gaze for long enough to force me to believe he was thinking of the exact same thing.

Hours later, as the bands and all the crews were mingling in the hotel bar, Jared and I had stayed side by side, but not obviously enough as to be suspicious. When I did break away from him for a few minutes, he caught me leaning against the bar, asking the bartender for another beer.

"I'm heading up," I heard him telling Caleb behind me, who instantly called him a pussy. Disappointed, I didn't bother to turn around to tell him goodnight.

The bartender was handing me my beer when I felt Jared's hand on my bare shoulder. "Check your phone," he said coolly. I turned around, but as quickly as he'd come he was leaving through the growing throng of people.

_(615 - Jared Followill): Pool?_

Yep, Jared and I _were _on the same page.


	3. Chapter 3

**_You can't start a fire without a spark._**

* * *

I found myself in my white bikini thirty minutes later, leaving a scribbled note to Colby in our room not to stay up for me – not that she would, anyway. She was drunk off her ass in the bar with her fiancé.

I met Jared on the top floor, where he had booked one of the suites. Why or how he had changed his reservation, I didn't ask.

As Jared unlocked the pool gate, I was immediately impressed as to how undeniably sexy the entire scene was.

"I was all alone," he said, pulling me into a hug as we stood beside the glowing pool. We were half naked – the only people on the entire floor. According to Jared, the other suites weren't booked for the night. Completely private.

Drunk and floating through the golden-lit pool, Jared and I drunkenly spilled our internal worries and faults. He seemed particularly curious about my love life, un-shockingly. I made a face at the subject.

"Let's not make this awkward," I suggested.

He laughed a little. "Alright, whatever." He waded deeper into the pool as I stood on the steps, my hair flying in the wind. "You've obviously done this before, though," he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well." He glided back towards me, pulling my hand until I was up to my waist in the water, beside him. "I just figured - you know…" He shrugged when I looked at him quizzically. "You hang out with other guys, right?"

"No," I said flatly. Suddenly, I wasn't feeling so keen on my decision to come upstairs with him. I was almost pissed off, about to convince myself to turn around and leave, but he was staring at me, oddly this time, as if he were more pleased than anything else at my reaction. Still, I felt myself wading towards the steps, turning my back on him.

"Look - I like you. I didn't mean to sound like a douchebag," I heard him say. I turned back around. He was just standing there kind of awkwardly, the water barely at his waist. I sensed a hint of anxiety in him. For once he was unsure of what I would say.

I realized I didn't know how to respond, so I just looked at him like he was an idiot.

Again, he walked towards me and grabbed my hand, pulling me back in. "I mean come _on_, if you didn't like me you wouldn't have been flirting with me this entire time."

"You're so fucking _cocky_," I said, not even thinking. He was, and he knew it, because he smirked when I said this, unfazed.

"Don't act like you don't like it or anything." He raised his eyebrows at me. "It'd be a shame to lie to yourself." I couldn't tell if he was joking or being serious. After all, the two of us were doing a well enough job to hide from everyone else in what happened to be a _honeymoon suite_.

He practically read my mind. "We did venture up here, didn't we?"

"I'm not normally this sketchy," I pressed.

He was grabbing me by the hips now, his nose less than an inch from mine. "Yet you came _here_… right."

I felt a gigantic urge to punch him; I wasn't supposed to be this easy to read._He was right, I wanted to be here._

The two of us held on to each other, his hands moving slowly up my waist beneath the water to my chest. I should've pulled away. _I had a boyfriend._Yet whatever was binding me to Jared was a much stronger force than anything I could fight. He kissed me, keeping his face close to mine when we pulled away.

This meeting we had conducted, we both knew, had only mischievous intentions behind it. We were past being flirty now – I had gotten myself into the danger zone. I knew this as soon as he started sucking on my neck, his hands wandering to places they shouldn't have been. My conscience was turning into a milky haze. I felt his fingers inside of me and let out a forceful moan, opening up an entirely new territory that I had so secretly been wanting Jared to enter. We were kissing again, my fingers clutching the back of his hair as I panted into his mouth. He had me pinned against the side of the pool with his body, pushing against me so my legs could go nowhere but around his waist. We were covering up the light, pressed together, sending a dusky, almost eerily romantic glow to the water. He unhooked the back of my bikini top, his hands all over me, breathing deeply in my ear. His lips were pressed just gently against my skin, sending a dark chill up my spine. _I was not a sweet little girl anymore._

Jared proceeded to press himself against me, squeezing my thighs against him until we were slowly swaying against one another. I couldn't deny how bad I wanted him. I wasn't thinking of the pain I would cause Tyler if he found out, which was disgusting because I so wasn't the kind of girl to do this - cheat on my boyfriend without a second thought. But here I was, doing it, as if I were some different person. Jared had sparked such a deep fascination inside of me with his bedroom eyes and gentlemanly demeanor that I couldn't help but want to touch the flame that was him.

Jared ran his hands up my chest to the back of my neck. Our kissing had become fervent, forced, like we owed it to each other.

I moved my lips behind his ear, my tongue rolling on his skin. He sucked in a large gulp of air.

"Seriously, let's go," he breathed.

It seemed we were out of the pool and at Jared's door in seconds, still dripping wet and panting from the humidity that had risen from the heat of the pool. He slammed me against the door and kissed me; in half a second, I could feel the cool air of his room as he pushed it open.

The entire suite was decorated in expensive, white vintage furniture. It was immediately ruined and drenched in the water dripping from our bodies as we stumbled inside, still making out. Finally, Jared picked me up; my legs wrapped around his waist, and carried me to his room. He laid me out on the perfectly made hotel bed. The blankets felt strange against my damp skin. He climbed on top of me, struggling to pull my wet bikini off of my body. When I reached for his hips to slide off his shorts, I realized — _I just don't give a fuck anymore._

"I want you so bad," he moaned as I attempted to pull them down his legs. When they were off, for a second he just looked me up and down as I lay there beneath him. I was spinning with eagerness and a hint of uncertainty at the unfamiliar feeling of only him on top of my bare body.

His tongue pressed feverishly against mine, and I moaned very fervently against his lips. Then, as if taking it as a sign, he pushed himself inside of me.

It was the instant that marked there was no future possible with me and Tyler, ever. I didn't know it then – hell, I wasn't thinking about it then. I was thinking about Jared and how every move we made together seemed more and more right.

We continued on in that big white bed, breathing each others' names and nothing else. Jared pulled back the covers now, and our still-slick bodies stuck to the sheets as we swayed.

"Get on top of me," he whispered.

I sat up and pushed him back, sliding my hands up his chest to his shoulders. "Oh my _God_," was the only thing he said.

The ends of my hair were soaking wet and sticking to my back. The combination of the cool air of the hotel suite, the dampness of our bodies, and the heat now relaying between Jared and I couldn't have been any more perfect. The simple details like the arch of his brow and the way his mouth was barely open as he panted somehow turned me on more than anything. My hands on his chest, he clutched at my wrists, balancing himself so he could push even deeper inside of me.

Our bodies were moving in perfect symmetry. Every swing and twist and turn Jared and I made was another bullet to my relationship with Tyler. _Here goes a year and a half._

It was over, and Jared was sprawled out beside me, his arm lying lazily over my stomach. As I looked at him with his eyes shut, unable to see me, I suddenly felt vulnerable. Like there was some way that Jared was going to open my chest and open up my heart, get inside me and mess me up. I had all these defenses, a whole suit of armor so that nothing could break me, and then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wandered into my stupid life… I gave Jared a piece of myself. I gave him my relationship with Tyler. He didn't ask for it. He did that dumb thing with his smile and sweet kiss, and now my life wasn't the same anymore. I stared up at the ceiling, dumbfounded by what I had just done.

"You okay?" Jared eventually asked, sitting up and resting on his elbow, his other hand rubbing my waist.

I thought back to the night Jared and I had met for the first time, only briefly, nearly two years before at their show in New Orleans. Summer 2009. He had been engaged, and I was the single one then. I wondered how different it would have been had we hooked up back then. _I wondered how he would feel being me right now._

I leaned up and kissed him. "Of course."

A fake smile. Jared didn't know. Jared didn't know _me_.

The hardest thing about accepting the saying "everything happens for a reason" is waiting for that reason to come. Jared fell asleep in the nook of my neck and shoulder that night while I lied awake, battling the two women I didn't know I had inside of me. I said a quick prayer, begging for an answer from the Man Upstairs who had already blessed me with so much. _Just go with it, _I finally told myself. _Whatever happens - happens. _I fell asleep telling myself this, with Jared breathing on my neck, easing my own mind into accepting what I could not change.

An hour later, Jared woke me up wanting to have sex again. The sun began rising just as we finished – 6:30 AM. He laid me back, his eyes red from lack of sleep.

"Morning, beautiful," he whispered, grinning down at me.

I felt myself accepting my fate as I stared up at him. I had to morph into this new woman, the woman Jared saw, the woman clearly fighting to get out of me. I ran my fingertips up his arm, leaned up, and whispered, "Wanna take a shower before you have to sneak me out of here?"

_No turning back now. I was gone._

* * *

I unlocked the door to mine and Colby's room a little after 8 AM. She was passed out on her bed, still in her clothes from the night before. I needed to talk to her, bad.

Jared's voice was running through my head. The last thing he had said before kissing me in the foyer of his suite stained my mind and warped what I had been initially been expecting out of him, which was sex and sex alone.

_"I don't want you to think I expected… this. Any of this."_

_"It's fine, Jared. I swear." Yep, everything was just fucking peachy._

_"You're a good girl." He kissed me — a long, sweet Jared kiss, and then smirked. "I like you a lot."_

I didn't know how to respond or what that meant; was he mocking the fact that I had just cheated on my boyfriend with him? I pretended I knew what he meant and kissed him goodbye without another word.

Gone.


End file.
